The thesis statement, the outline, tying a source into your text, the counterargument and the oral part. The detail of the course, section by section.
Week 1 is the week classes start. The one practical conclusion from this table: you need to have chosen your topic by week 4, and you present it in week 8.
| Week | What is in the syllabus | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| 1-2 | Introduction to the course, announcement of the course topic, library visits | This is where you learn the umbrella subject. Miss it and every decision after it is made in mid air. |
| 3 | Analysis of the Academic Essay texts, Library Skills Task | The task happens after the essay has been assigned. The prompt says weeks 3-5. |
| 4 | Essay detailed outline, outline tutorial, research paper topic selection | Your research topic should be settled this week. |
| 5 | Writing the Academic Essay in class, oral task skills input | 20% goes in a single sitting. This is not an assignment you take home. |
| 6-7 | Research and oral skills input, essay tutorials outside class, an ungraded oral pre-task | The pre-task is your rehearsal. It carries no grade, which is why it gets skipped; that is the part that actually helps. |
| 8-10 | Research Paper Proposal Presentation | 20%. What you present is not finished research, it is the plan for research not yet done. |
| 10-11 | Outline tutorials, Research Paper Outline | 10%, and the skeleton of the 30% paper. The tutorial is the one point in this chain where you get line by line correction. |
| 12-13 | Research paper input, Academic Writing Language Workshop | The writing weeks. Far too late to change the topic. |
| 14 | Research Paper final draft, End of Course Interview | 45% of the grade falls in the same week. |
ENG 101 was a writing course, ENG 102 is a research course. The ENG program's course page states the difference in one sentence: the essay with drafts that you write in the first part of the term rests on "a mixture of sources provided by the instructor and one source you found through your own library research". In ENG 101 the sources are given to you, and you read and argue about them. In ENG 102 finding the sources is your job too, and it is one of the things that gets graded.
Three structural differences: there is no final, 40% of the grade is in a single chain (the outline plus the paper) and 35% is oral. And there is this: convert the week numbers of the course calendar into your own term once. Write the dates of weeks 3, 5, 8 and 14 in your calendar, because every warning on this page looks at those four dates. For your own term's dates see the academic calendar.
There is also the withdrawal window and it falls right in the middle: the window lands roughly on weeks 6 to 8. On that date you know only 25% of your grade (the library task at 5% and the essay at 20%). The research paper chain at 40% and the interview at 15% come after the window closes. So all the heavy part of the course sits outside the date on which you could decide.
Everything that is not in the common syllabus, changes from section to section, and turns into guesswork when you work without knowing the answer. Copy the table to your phone and write the answers in. Until an answer comes, do what the right hand column says: none of them leaves you stuck.
| Question | What I do until the answer comes |
|---|---|
| What is the section's Broad Subject area? | It is written in the RESEARCH PROJECT task specification document on the assignment sheet. The instructor list on the ENG program's site also carries each instructor's ENG 101/102 course topic: look up whoever teaches the course and confirm it in the first class. |
| Which week does the Library Skills Task open, and how many hours is the window? | Assume weeks 3-5 and fill it in the day you come out of the library session. In the example we measured the window was 24 hours. |
| Is the library visit in class time; am I recorded as absent if I do not go? | Assume it is class time and go. The common syllabus counts Library Visits on the weeks 1-2 row. |
| Which day is the in class essay and how many minutes does it last? | Assume week 5. By the end of week 4 have the thesis, three topic sentences and the locations of your evidence ready. |
| Is the in class essay handwritten or typed? Is a dictionary allowed? | Assume handwritten and no dictionary. Do one handwriting rehearsal: writing by hand is slower than a keyboard, and discovering that difference in the exam hour is expensive. In the file we measured the essay was written as 6 pages of handwriting across four class hours. |
| Can notes be used in class, in what form, and is prior approval needed? | Apply the FAE pattern: key ideas only, no full sentences, approved in advance. Write your notes to that pattern from the start and you will not have to cut them down later. |
| What is the length of the essay, pages or words? | The prompt we measured said 1000-1500 words plus or minus 5% and 5-6 paragraphs. FAE sometimes gives it in pages: 2.5-4 pages, 12 point, double spaced. Both under the limit and over it cost points. |
| Are the tutorials inside class time or outside it, and in which weeks? | The common syllabus writes "outside the class" only for weeks 6-7. Assume the others are outside class and ask the time; the people who miss them do not notice they missed until the grade arrives. |
| Which citation style: MLA, APA, something else? | Collect the citation details in raw form: the author's full name, the full title, the year, the publisher or journal, the volume and issue, the page range, the DOI. Once the style arrives you arrange them; collecting incomplete information means starting over. |
| How many minutes is the presentation, are slides required, is it solo? | ENG 101 calibration: 15-20 minutes on your own. Scale the skeleton below to your time, but do not drop items. |
| What is the presentation graded on, is there a criteria form? | Assume the items on FAE's ENG 101 presentation form: content 12, organization 3, language 3, delivery 3, visuals 3, audience 3. Do not write sentences on slides. |
| Did my presentation slot land in week 8, 9 or 10? | Assume week 8. Being ready early costs nothing, being late costs 20%. |
| How many sources are asked for in the research paper outline, will it be annotated? | The rubric says at least 5 sources. Apply the rule of one support per claim and keep an annotated record for yourself. If it is asked for you are ready, and if it is not, the support column of your outline is full. |
| How many words or how many pages is the research paper? | In the file we measured, the minimum asked for the final was 1650 words and the draft submitted had a 1916 word body. The syllabus's own reckoning allocates 20 hours to the research paper. |
| How many sources are asked for in the research paper, which types are accepted? | Make at least one peer reviewed, and at least one from the side that argues against your thesis. Those two serve you whatever number you are given. The draft we measured had 16 citations. |
| Is the draft chain compulsory: if the outline and interim draft are not handed in, does the final draft get read? | Assume it is compulsory. Keep every draft and hand them in; in the rubric a final draft that arrives without the earlier draft gets a zero without being read. |
| What is the late penalty, and what is the deadline hour? | Assume 5% a day and 23:00 rather than midnight. If those two assumptions are wrong, they are not wrong against you. |
| What is the submission channel and file format, is there a file name rule? | Assume the Turnitin box on Moodle plus PDF. After submitting, check that the Turnitin ID appears. If the AI percentage comes out above zero you can be asked to upload again as Word. |
| What is the AI policy? | Assume it cannot be used in any graded work: in the FAE section we have, the item was exactly that. If permission comes, you widen it. |
| How many minutes is the End of Course Interview, is it one to one, what is it graded on? | Assume one to one and 10-15 minutes, and prepare to defend your paper. The outcomes it measures are written in the syllabus, the format is not. |
| Is attendance counted in hours or in blocks; how many hours does one block get recorded as? | Do not miss more than three blocks. With 110 minute blocks, the 7 hour limit is passed in the fourth block whichever way you count. |
A thesis statement is a claim plus a reason. Not a topic heading, not a plan, not a question. FAE's own definition is shorter: the thesis is the answer you give to the essay question.
The comparisons are worked through in a way that separates the move from the sentence. You write the assignment in English, but understanding the move and building the sentence are two different jobs.
The falsifiability test: if the results still diverge when the definitions are the same, the thesis falls. If you can say that, your thesis is measurable.
Social media is harmful to adolescents.
Large scale studies measuring the relationship between adolescent screen use and mental health reach opposite conclusions even though they use the same datasets; the source of that divergence is not the data itself but how use is defined, and therefore the available evidence does not carry a causal claim.
In the weak version "harmful" is not measured, who is involved is not clear, and you cannot say what evidence would refute it. In the strong version a criterion arrives and the thesis becomes falsifiable.
Name the mechanism: say what caused it, do not just state the outcome.
In this paper I will examine the effect of automation on the labor market.
Frey and Osborne's automation forecast for US employment exaggerates the risk because it treats an occupation as an indivisible whole; later studies that examine occupations at task level show that the same technology rearranges work rather than destroying it.
The weak version is not a thesis, it is a table of contents. In FAE's language, an "announcement". In the strong version the reason for the exaggeration is named.
Can a reasonable reader say "no, the opposite" to your thesis?
Public transport is important in cities.
In the pedestrianization argument, the shopkeepers' resistance is not irrational but comes out of a difference in measurement: shopkeepers systematically misjudge how their own customers arrive, and because municipalities test that judgment with surveys rather than data, the objection confirms itself.
In the weak version nobody argues the opposite. A sentence that cannot be disagreed with cannot be a thesis.
A single position. The rubric asks for a "singular stance".
The education system in Turkey has both good and bad sides.
Studies measuring the predictive power of the central examination show that the exam predicts university performance, but because the same studies do not control for the resources spent on exam preparation, it stays unclear whether what they measure is ability or the capacity to prepare.
The "both and" pattern is where the thesis dies: two directions, and therefore no direction.
The "the real problem is not X but Y" pattern: you say what is NOT the cause and then say what you put in its place.
Artificial intelligence is changing education.
The real problem generative AI creates in composition courses is not plagiarism but measurement: the text itself no longer carries information about the student's process, so assessment has to shift from the product to the intermediate outputs of the process.
The weak version is true but empty. An observation everybody accepts.
The English of the strong version of the first pair:
Large-scale studies of adolescent screen use and mental health reach opposite conclusions even when they draw on the same datasets. The source of that divergence is not the data but the way "use" is defined and measured; the available evidence therefore supports a correlation and does not carry the causal claim that the public debate assigns to it.
What each part does: even when they draw on the same datasets is the claim, and the "even when" structure pulls the other side's strongest assumption inside the sentence. not X but Y is the mechanism, which is where the thesis becomes falsifiable. therefore is the conclusion, and the singular stance the rubric asks for comes after that word.
Build your own thesis with those three parts: the claim, the mechanism with not X but Y, the conclusion with therefore. Let the words come from your own topic. The thesis in the file we measured does the same job with a different pattern: Despite the opposing views to grant the opposing view, then take your position, then three reasons as a) b) c).
There are two separate outlines in the syllabus and they get mixed up. The Academic Essay Detailed Outline in week 4 is the plan for the essay you will write in class. The Research Paper Outline in weeks 10-11 is a separately graded submission.
FAE's planning template asks for this: a proposed topic sentence for each body section, 1-3 sub arguments under it, and a separate evidence line under every sub argument. So the plan is not at the level of "I will write three paragraphs" but of "nine claims and nine pieces of evidence". The most common reason for struggling while writing the essay in class is leaving the plan at paragraph level.
A bad outline looks like this: Introduction / Literature / Discussion / Conclusion. That is a table of contents. In a good outline every line is a claim, and next to it stands the source that carries that claim.
| Section | The claim it carries | Support |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction | This argument is presented as settled in public, while inside the field it is not settled. | the opposition between the two sides |
| Background | What the timing pattern the claim rests on is. | the first side |
| Evidence 1 | On the same datasets the effect size comes out very small. | a large sample study |
| Evidence 2 | The relationship is not linear: very little use goes with as low a level of wellbeing as very heavy use. | a second study |
| Evidence 3 | When different but reasonable choices of method are applied to the same data, the result can change sign. | the specification curve method |
| Counterargument | The timing pattern is not easily explained by coincidence. | the first side, a concession then narrowing the scope |
| Conclusion | The available evidence supports a correlation, it does not support causation. | none |
Two rules. Write a sentence in the middle column, not a heading: "the measurement problem" is a heading, "the two sides diverge because they measure different units" is a claim. And do not leave the right hand column blank: a row that stays blank is either unresearched or your own assumption.
| Section | The claim it carries (one sentence) | Support (author, year, which part) |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction | ||
| Background | ||
| Evidence 1 | ||
| Evidence 2 | ||
| Evidence 3 | ||
| Counterargument | ||
| Conclusion |
In week 5 you write the essay in class. The only thing produced that day is sentences; the ideas have to be ready in advance.
Get the length from your instructor and scale the plan to it. In the section we measured the writing ran across three class hours; in the 2026-27 timetable ENG 102 blocks are 110 minutes.
The outline tutorial in week 10 is the one point of line by line correction in the research paper chain. FAE's definition puts the work on the student: you are expected to have read the written feedback beforehand, to have worked out the questions you want to ask, and to come ready to explain your plan.
There are three routes and the three do different jobs. A quotation takes the source's words word for word in quotation marks, a paraphrase gives the same information in your own sentences, a summary shortens a long section. FAE's rule: good writing rests on summary more than on quotation.
The first sentence and the last sentence of the paragraph should be yours, not the source's.
A (2024) argues that a phone based childhood damages adolescent mental health. B and C (2019) find the relationship to be very small. D (2024) says the causal claim is bigger than the evidence.
In this argument the sides look at the same data but measure different things. A (2024) starts from a timing pattern; B and C (2019) measure individual time of use and find the effect very small. The divergence is therefore not a disagreement about data but about the unit of measurement, and D's (2024) objection lands exactly here.
The first version has three correct sentences and zero argument. The reader asks "all right, what are you saying?" In the second the sources are working for a claim.
The same material in English, with no quotation marks, meaning built entirely on paraphrase. That is the only way not to give an invented page number; the same constraint holds for you, and the page number comes from the source itself.
| Sentence | What it does |
|---|---|
| The disagreement in this literature is not about the data but about the unit of measurement. | Your sentence. It announces the paragraph's claim and has no source inside it. The rubric's item "the paragraph develops a single idea" gets checked from here. |
| A (2024) builds his case on a timing pattern: the decline in adolescent mental health, he argues, coincides with the spread of the smartphone. | An attributive tag (argues) plus the source's claim. No quotation marks, because the words are yours; the citation stands inside the text. |
| B and C (2019) work with the same large datasets but measure individual screen use instead, and they report an association small enough to carry little practical weight. | The link that compares two sources. The "but ... instead" pattern is where you make the source work for your claim. |
| Because the two sides count different things, a population-level turning point and an individual-level dose, both findings can hold at once. | The sentence that says what the evidence does to your claim. Without this sentence the two citations above are left hanging. |
| For my argument this matters in one specific way: the evidence supports a correlation, and what the public debate gets wrong is the step from correlation to cause. | Your sentence again, and it carries a piece of your thesis. |
The wording in FAE's plagiarism guide is clear: keeping the structure of the original sentence and replacing all the words with synonyms counts as plagiarism too. So does taking some of the original's words without quotation marks and changing the others.
So a bad paraphrase looks like this: the source's sentence structure stands as it was, and the words have been swapped for synonyms. That is called patchwriting. The test: close the source, wait two minutes, then write. If the sentence structure is still the same, you have not paraphrased.
One more item that is less known: ideas are used with a citation too, not just words. Every theory that specialists in the field would recognize as "belonging to this person" needs a citation. Common knowledge does not, but the guide adds an honest warning: an idea can spread so far over time that it ends up in textbooks and its source is forgotten. Be extra careful where the distinction is hard.
A counterargument is not decoration. FAE calls it problematising and defines it as a required part of an effective argument. The rubric's limit is clear: the concession and the counterargument must not break your position.
The ones listed under the Reasoning/Logical Fallacies heading. The three most useful in this course: false cause (you can criticize a source that presents a correlation as causation by this name), anecdotal fallacy (putting your own experience in place of evidence) and personal assurance (that saying "it is definitely so" is not evidence).
In the syllabus it is called the RESEARCH PAPER PROPOSAL PRESENTATION and it is spread over weeks 8, 9 and 10. The word here matters: proposal. You are presenting the proposal for research not yet written. The student who tries to present results either invents them or finds nothing to say.
ENG 102's presentation criteria are not in the common syllabus. Below is FAE's ENG 101 presentation form; its categories show the program's general approach.
| Item | Points | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Content: identifying, summarizing and synthesizing the main ideas | 6 | whether you know your sources |
| Content: taking a clear position and supporting claims with evidence | 6 | whether the talk has an argument of its own |
| Organization | 3 | an introduction, a logical order, transition phrases, a closing summary |
| Language | 3 | accuracy of language and register |
| Delivery | 3 | NOT reading off the slide or a script, not reciting memorized material. Put key words and visuals on the slide, not sentences. |
| Visuals | 3 | showing and explaining the visuals while speaking |
| Audience Awareness and Interaction | 3 | Asking meaningful questions in OTHER people's presentations, being able to show the information given. So sitting in someone else's presentation is a graded job too, and you take notes throughout every talk. |
What people fear is usually not the criteria: not understanding the question, not knowing the answer, getting lost in the middle of a sentence. All three have a ready way out. Say them out loud once, otherwise the first thing that comes to mind in the moment is switching to Turkish.
In week 14, the same week as the research paper final draft. The format is not in the syllabus but what it measures is: analyzing spoken input critically, building spoken arguments based on evidence, communicating in formal presentations and discussions, using the language accurately and appropriately.
What the three have in common: the answer is thirty seconds long and a source name appears in it. A long answer is not a defense, it is filler, and no source name appears inside filler.
| Question | Answer | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| State your thesis in one sentence. | "Studies looking at the same data reach opposite conclusions; the source of the divergence is not the data but how use is measured, so the available evidence does not carry a causal claim." | One sentence, the mechanism named, a conclusion present. Short enough to say without looking at paper. |
| Which is your strongest source, and why? | "That study. It applies a large number of reasonable analyses to the same dataset and shows the range of the result, so it tests my claim directly." | It did not praise the source, it said what job the source does. This is the spoken version of the rubric's "don't praise or blame; analyze" item. |
| What is the strongest objection that could be raised against you? | "The timing pattern is hard to explain by coincidence, and that is the other side's strongest card. I do not reject it, I accept that the correlation is real and limit my claim at the step to causation." | It repeated the objection at its strongest and then narrowed the scope. The opposite of a straw man. |
There is an ungraded oral pre-task in week 7. Because it carries no grade it does not get taken seriously; it is a free rehearsal in the same room in front of the same people. Do your talk there once.